Anne Arundel County prosecutor Karen Anderson-Scott told Circuit Judge Paul A. Hackner that last Dec. 18, Roland Michael Long, 40, was scouring the homeless camp off Eighth Avenue and Baltimore-Annapolis Boulevard for James Anthony Liberto, telling people he "was going to kill Jimmy" and he was "tired of Jimmy dissing him." He had a knife, she said.

That evening, Long was inside a McDonald's at the nearby Cromwell Station Shopping Center when Liberto, 43, tapped on the window with a lead pipe and called out to Long, she said. Long went outside, where they fought, and Long stabbed Liberto while he was on the ground, she said. A witness called police.

Long told police that Liberto had bullied him. Police took a folding knife with a 31/2 -inch blade from him, Anderson-Scott said.

However, Elizabeth Palan, an assistant public defender, said that according to witnesses, Long was struck with a pipe first, and then the brawl ensued. A pipe and knife, believed to belong to Liberto, were found at the scene, she said.

The plea agreement called for Long to plead guilty to manslaughter. He made no statement in court about the killing, though he did say he was receiving mental health treatment in jail.

In the wake of the killing, the tent city was shut down and its occupants dispersed.

The victim's mother, Carolyn Collins, cried as she told Hackner that her son had worked since he was 13, and that she, her family and the victim's son have suffered since his death. She said that her son had told her shortly before he was killed that he had decided to enter a rehabilitation center, but she did not say why.

July has seen more than 40 homicides so far, making it the second month in 2015 that homicides in Baltimore city have risen above 40. Homicides are also up across the board since 2014. See our homicide map here for a deeper dive into the data. Data accurate as of July 29, 2015 Months with more...

In 2015, Baltimore has seen two months with more than 40 homicides in a single-year period since the 1970s when the city's population was around 300,000 more residents, or during the 1990s when the number of homicides peaked at 353 murders.

May has seen 42 homicides so far, making it Baltimore's deadliest month since 1972. Shootings this month have more than doubled compared to May 2014. Meanwhile, arrests have plummeted since April's unrest in Baltimore, with only 1,177 people arrested so far in May compared to 3,801 in the same...